One month ago, an arrest warrant was issued for Lee Jae-yong, the de facto chairman of the entire Samsung conglomerate. The warrant later was nullified when challenged in court by Samsung, but a new warrant issued today has stuck: Mr. Lee was arrested in Seoul and charged with bribery. The entire scandal revolves around an ongoing political crisis involving the country's president. Lee is accused of paying bribes to organizations run by President Park's personal advisor, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for political favors. But the details of the larger scandal are rather tedious, so I'll leave the BBC's excellent summary for you to peruse here.

The reason the arrest of Mr. Lee is quite so important is that he is among the very highest ranks of the elite in South Korea, controlling the country's largest conglomerate, and is widely seen as royalty in Korea's large family owned businesses also known as chaebol. Samsung sits atop these companies, and Mr. Lee is a direct heir and grandson of the founder of Samsung, Lee Byung-chul. Dynastic inheritance of the family business is a major theme in South Korean corporations, as is the constant specter of scandal.

While unlikely to hurt Samsung's future substantially, Mr. Lee's arrest may mark a turning point for tolerance of corporate corruption and, more specifically, collusion between the country's lifeblood - conglomerates like Samsung - and its young democratic government. Make no mistake, someone in as high a place as Mr. Lee being charged with bribery is a very big deal in Korea. Given the public's outrage there over President Park's ongoing scandal, a justice system struggling to assert itself substantively against the embattled president may well find a stand-in in Mr. Lee.

He was arrested but his father was convicted of bribery TWICE! and pardoned twice. So it may be blood in the water but it may not be Lee Jae-yongs...Best believe it's a lot of parts moving in this story.

lzdking

Their economy has seen a slight decline since their Presidents scandal. It's hard to keep corporations/investors happy if they are under the impression that illegal bribes are necessary to skirt government regulations (in Samsung's case it was to restructure their company).

God damn does it feel good to read about a breaking scandal that doesn't involve the President of the United States for once.

It's been a long month.

Wayne Randall

Nice to see you stop by every once in a while. cheers

Denigrate

Those "breaking scandals" about the POTUS are just unwarranted controversies. The reactions are at least amusing.

Marthacyoung

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I have a feeling they're going to dig up some real dirt between him and Putin

Denigrate

Every claim about Russia's involvement in this election has been baseless. I doubt they'll find anything.

cryosx

Flynn was caught and the dossier is showing some truth. We'll see what happens

Denigrate

Flynn was caught lying about discussing sanctions the Obama Administration foolishly installed to Russian officials but specific information has not been revealed. Firing him was unreasonable until more information is known. Frankly, this whole situation with Russia is the same as Saddam having WMDs or the Viet Cong attacking American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin: complete bullshit used as provocation and propaganda.

cryosx

We also have Trump disregarding Russia's provactive actions while being hard on North Korea/Iran.

This guy age 50, probably the best spokesman for Korea plastic surgery

Victor Henry

If I were you, I would not buy any samsung product.

Samsung, a korea based company, is notorious for committing heavy crimes without any restrictions in korea.

It is not a secret in korea anymore that this Korean company has committed money laundering, bribery, illegal tax evasion, unlawful suppression of labor union, etc. To avoid felony charges due to abovementioned reasons, Samsung has periodically bribed high level government officials, prosecutors, judges, and major medias in korea. If you know how to read Korean, you can find related articles easily through online.

The number of known dead workers in Samsung semiconductor factories in korea has been over hundreds due to chemical exposures. Samsung insists that their deaths are mostly from family illness history, not from chemical exposures. After all, most of victim’s family received only several thousands of dollars as compensations. Victims’ family members who have protested against samsung have suffered from wiretapping, tailing, and threatening by Samsung for more than decades. Many victims’ family has migrated to other countries to avoid samsung’s threat and harassment. Some victims’ family even sued samsung for its unlawful behaviors, but in vain, because police and prosecutors are all samsung’s side.

Kun-hee lee and his son Jae-yong lee, who have ruled samsung for more than 40 years, have collected billions of dollars secretly through money laundering, ghost companies and stock fraud. Some of the related information was disclosed in public by Kun-hee lee’s elder brother, Maeng-hee Lee, who is deceased now.

The late Maeng-hee Lee had owned a company named CJ, and the company had suffered severe audit and inspection by government right after the disclosure, and many people in korea think that it is associated with samsung’s revenge.

The currently big issue in korea is that National Pension Service Department had conspired with samsung to manipulate stock market in korea for helping Jae-yong Lee to obtain the whole ownership of samsung corporation unlawfully. While helping him, National Pension Service had poured billions of dollars in stock market, and lost substantial amount of money. Many Korean people are angry about it, but no one believes that samsung will be punished because most of Korean government officials are under the control of samsung.

You may know the recent impeachment news of Korean president park geun-hye. The major allegation is that her close friend Choi soon-sil had controlled president park behind unlawfully. But guess what? It has been revealed that samsung has also bribed Choi soon-sil for a long time.

Until early 1990s, samsung was not a big company like today, but samsung constantly had stolen high technologies from Japanese companies. They had bribed key Japanese engineers from Toshiba, Sony, NEC, Sharp, Panasonic, Hitachi, etc and brought them to korea during the weekends and they returned back to Japan on Sunday night by flight. It is widely known that more than thousands of Japanese key engineers had secretly visited suwon area so far, where samsung’s major R&D centers are located.

In korea, Apple cannot release their iphones early, because Korean government intentionally delays the issue of Electro Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) certification under the control of samsung.

You should read disgusting articles of korean medias flattering samsung, while speaking ill of other companies like google, apple, intel, etc.

To me, south and north korea has no big difference in some sense. They are all corrupted deeply.

Vivek Rameses

No different than most governments. The fact it's not an American company is huge selling point, just like with web services.

But his father was convicted of bribery TWICE! and pardoned TWICE!!! Seems like it may be just the price of doing business...

Đức Thành

lolwut

What an idiot.

Dragos Lucian

I always bribe the doctor so his/her hand doesn't shake on the bistoury.

Zorak✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵉᵛᶦˡ

They got the wrong man I tell ya! It's all Putin's fault..it always is. Putin is evil, I mean really evil..slightly less evil than myself but that's irrelevant. What I'm trying to say is Putin is somehow behind every scandalous thing that happens in this world, don't ask me how but he is, believe you me. I'll bet you a 1000 Italian Lira(equivalent to 10,000 US$ post Itexit) that Putin somehow hacked into South Korean servers and poor Lee Jae-yong gets indicted. That bastard! I leave a half eaten ham sandwich on my table last night and in the morning its gone! Dammit Vladimir!!
Oh wait..my mobile security suite reports Putin is trying to hack into my phone right now..gotta take care of it..brb..afk..

Jonathan Ive

i did not do this , might be Tim

The running vm

Try a little harder.
:d

John Staples ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ

GOT 'EEM!

mxwp

Ironically brought down by evidence found on a Samsung Galaxy tablet owned by the President's "Rasputin" that triggered all this.

BUWWAHAHAHA!!!! For YEARS i been the first to say Swinesung is THEFT/Corrupt/GARBAGE and has made its way to the top because of corrupt just like this. I hope he gets send to jail for the rest of his life!

qwertyx7

Damn. @rdr0b11:disqus , you've accomplished what so many other tech news sources in the western hemisphere have failed to do by explaining, even with just a few words, what sort of impact this arrest could have. Android Police is lucky to have you.